For businesses large and small, relying on a cloud-based collaboration and productivity suite such as Microsoft Office 365 is becoming the norm. Enhancing productivity in your organisation is vital to get ahead in 2017 - and using Office 365 can help, if it's used right...

Phishers crack two-factor authentication

Next-generation attack spells doom for security system

A new phishing attack attempts to steal user name, password and temporary password

Security experts have detected a new type of phishing attack that could
render two-factor authentication useless.

A dual-factor security system typically uses a password and some kind of
hardware security device such as a smartcard or token that issues temporary
passwords.

Smartcards are commonly used within corporations, while online transaction
systems and banks opt for tokens.

The
Security
Fix blog reported that researchers at
Secure
Science Corporation spotted a phishing website
targetting Citibank's
Citibusiness service that attempted to steal both the user name and password as
well as the temporary password issued by the security token.

The site furthermore acted as a middleman that relayed the information to the
Citibank server for authentication. It prompted users if the information they
entered was incorrect.

"Exactly the same kind of attacks can be used to target other types of
two-factor authentication, including one-time password sheets,"
noted
Mikko Hyppönen, chief research officer with
F-Secure.

Two-factor authentication systems are considered to be safer than services
that rely solely on a user name and password because the temporary passwords
expire after a short time. Owners also notice when their tokens or key cards are
lost.

But security researchers have warned that attackers could still use the
temporary passwords in a real-time attack where they do not wait for the
temporary password to expire.

"These days, typical attacks do not engage in this level of sophistication.
Usernames and passwords are still collected, but it is usually some time before
they are used. Two-factor authentication tokens work well for these very
simple-minded attacks,"
commented
Zulfikar Ramzan, a senior principal researcher with
Symantec.

"However, if an attack is more sophisticated and the phisher can use the
credentials in real time, we are the ones out of luck.

"I believe that two-factor authentication security will be almost futile when
we tackle the next generation of phishing attacks."